I was given the golden opportunity to interview the fabulous Sasha Wilkins (of Liberty London Girl fame) yesterday as part of the networking event, Fashion Business Club. In the space of half an hour we managed to cover the early years (when we were the first people to comment on each other’s blog posts), the challenges of anonyblogging, making the transition to full time blogging and social media consultancy, and how fashion brands can connect with customers via social media. As ever, Sasha was incredibly candid and generous with her insights and there were quite a few hoots of laughter (hint: don’t ever ask her about Dell if you don’t want to hear what she really thinks about bad customer service).

Some of my most memorable ‘takeaway’ tips from Sasha were:
*If you’re a blogger who wants to connect with PRs or brands, send them a press release about your blog outlining what your blog’s about, why it’s relevant to their brand and giving statistics such as unique users. These show that you take blogging seriously.

*Stay authentic and don’t get seduced by the temptation of freebies from brands. If you don’t love it, don’t blog about it or you risk losing your credibility and your readers will be able to see through that.

*Brands wanting to work with bloggers shouldn’t send blanket emails. Better to do some research, find out who is already talking about you and build a relationship with those bloggers.

*Small brands don’t need to be visible on every social media platform. And if it’s too time consuming managing a blog on Blogger or WordPress, consider a Tumblr blog, it’s more visual, easier to manage and the ‘reblogging’ button will help spread the word about you.

A couple of hours before the event we tweeted each other about what we were wearing. Sasha rightly pointed out that there was zero chance of us turning up in duplicate outfits – our personal styles are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Sure enough, she arrived in a beautiful Erdem dress and chunky Reiss heels and I in a Cos shirt, Levis chino jeans and loafers!

UPDATED 5th April 2011: Lucie Goulet has written a more in-depth review on the FBC blog.

Welcome to Disneyrollergirl, the fashion blog by London-based fashion editor, Navaz Batliwalla. Disneyrollergirl is the go-to resource for fashion and beauty industry insights, emerging trends and editorial shoots from an industry insider’s point of view.